By Stephen Adams and Ben Leach Published: 6:13PM GMT twenty-eight February 2010
Helen Skelton, the Blue Peter presenter, accomplished an epic tour kayaking 2,010 miles down the Amazon For yesterday one of the show"s presenters, 26-year-old Helen Skelton, accomplished a 2,010 mile tour paddling down the Amazon river, a tour majority experts pronounced she would find impossible.
On her approach she paddled past alligators, anacondas and shoals of man-eating piranha fish.
Helen Skelton"s Amazon diaries: week five Helen Skelton"s Amazon diaries: week 4 Helen Skelton"s Amazon diaries: week 3 Helen Skelton"s Amazon diaries Colin�Freeman: My 40 days in a cavern hold by Somali gunmen Edinburgh Festival 2009: Theatre recommendationsFortunately nothing waylaid the devoted Skelton, who accomplished the odyssey roughly 6 weeks after environment off from Nauta in Peru on Jan 20.
She was greeted with cheers and celebratory gunshots as she crossed the finish line at Almeirim in Brazil, where the stream becomes tidal.
In so you do she became the initial lady to paddle the Amazon and pennyless dual universe records: for the longest documented piece for one person tour in a boat and the longest area trafficked by a lady in a boat in twenty-four hours (75 miles).
But Skelton, who paddled about 60 miles a day, for 6 days a week, suffered for the honour.
She had dual injections to negate feverishness depletion and was bitten by insects hundreds of times.
She endured blisters, sores and faintness so bad she infrequently felt similar to giving up.
Making some-more than a million strokes, she went by a little 150ft of healing fasten to strengthen her hands.
But she pronounced she was unapproachable of her "war wounds".
She said: "It"s been difficult but I"ve had sufficient highs to have it some-more than worthwhile. I"m really propitious to have extraordinary people in my hold up who"ve picked me up when things got difficult and majority importantly desirous me to lift on.
"My bottom is bruised, my shoulders are bruise and the muscles in my neck are creation it difficult to compute in between my head and my shoulders but to be honest I am unapproachable of the fight wounds.
"I reckon that you shouldn"t bashful afar from things given they"re difficult or you competence fail. Get stranded in and you never know where you competence finish up."
Skelton, who has been a Blue Peter presenter given Aug 2008, had never stepped feet in a boat prior to training.
But the Cumbrian farmer"s daughter never doubted her capability to finish the task.
Last Apr she became usually the second lady to finish the 78-mile Namibia Ultra Marathon, completing 3 marathons in twenty-three hours and 50 minutes.
Before her ultimate escapade she asked James Cracknell, the stand in Olympic bullion award rower and adventurer, for advice.
"You can"t do this," he said.
"You don"t know me," she replied
Everyone thought the thought of her kayaking alone down the Amazon was laughable, she recalled.
But she said: "Never decider a book by the cover. Just given I can have things with sticky-back cosmetic doesn"t meant I can"t mangle records."
She pronounced she had perceived thousands of messages of await for the trip, in assist of the gift Sport Relief, one being from Cracknell.
Her exploits will be promote in dual Blue Peter specials on Mar sixteen and 17.
Skelton pronounced she right away due it to her friends and family "to have a bit of a rest" prior to embarking on an additional expedition.
Asked what she was seeking brazen to, she did not contend lazing on the lounge or a good takeaway curry.
Rather, her thoughts incited to her dog, Barney.
"I"ve longed for my dog terribly," she said. "So the initial thing I"m going to do will be to collect him up and take him for a good prolonged walk."
